Gerd Stern in Conversation with Neeli Cherkovski

May 19, 2018

3pm

In conjunction with Ship of Dreams: Artists, Poets, and Visionaries of the S.S. Vallejo, SVMA is pleased to present Gerd Stern, a major figure among San Francisco's Beat generation, who will be talking with Neeli Cherkovski about his work and his time and experiences as part of the Beat and hippy art scenes on the S.S. Vallejo.

In addition to his Beat credits, Gerd Stern's long and ecclectic career has included manager for Maya Angelou; writer for Playboy; producer of the Timothy Leary Psychedelic Theater, founder of the media art collective USCO (Company of US), leader of the late 1960s psychedelic art movement, and pioneer of multi-media art. His solo work and collaborative multi-media projects with USCO have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,Guggenheim Museum, Tate Museum, and Centre Georges Pompidou.

Neeli Cherkovski is a San Francisco poet and biographer, and co-editor (with Charles Bukowski) of Anthology of L.A. Poets, and co-editor (with Bill Mohr) of Cross Strokes: Poetry between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Among Cherkovski's memoirs is Whitman's Wild Children, which looks at twelve Beat poets, including Michael McClure, James Broughton, Bob Kaufman, Allen Ginsberg, as well as a biography of Lawrence Ferlinghetti.